While I thought that Koji Suzuki’s Ring was a bit of a departure from the successful movie franchise it inspired, nothing could have prepared me for how different Spiral is from the established Ring mythos. As it turns out, the pair investigating the cursed video tape in the original novel were jumping to conclusions after all. The answer to the riddle isn’t necessarily to make a copy and show it to someone else; in Spiral the curse reveals itself to be a paranormal virus with a uniquely sinister aim. On the trail of this inexplicable virus is the coroner Ando and his loose-knit team of researchers and scientists. As a continuation of the story in Ring, Ando gets help and hindrance from characters introduced in the previous book. Interestingly, some of that “help” comes from beyond the grave in the form of coded messages from Ryuji. The story has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, even if the text itself is sometimes a bit rough due to the translation. Even so, this is a novel that manages to better its predecessor. Ultimately, Spiral poses the same question as Ring: what are you willing to do for those that you love?

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